Behind Closed Doors

2 MayPanel

“All happy families are alike,” Tolstoy famously wrote, “ [but] each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” A trio of critically acclaimed novelists joins Lex Hirst to discuss how they have written compelling and complex stories of families in crisis. They explore how the memories we carry in our blood can influence and discolour our view of the world, with repercussions unfolding across generations. Featuring Stephanie Bishop (Man Out of Time), Peggy Frew (Islands) and Krissy Kneen (Wintering).

Peggy Frew’s work has appeared in New Australian Stories, Kill Your Darlings, Meanjin, and The Big Issue. Islands is her third novel. Her first book, House of Sticks, won the Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for an Unpublished Manuscript and was shortlisted for the Glenda Adams Prize for New Writing. Hope Farm, her second novel, won the Barbara Jefferis Award, was shortlisted for the Stella Prize and the Miles Franklin Literary Award, and was longlisted for the International Dublin Literary Award.

Krissy Kneen is the award-winning author of memoir Affection, and fiction: An Uncertain Grace, Steeplechase, Triptych, The Adventures of Holly White and the Incredible Sex Machine, as well as the Thomas Shapcott Award-winning poetry collection Eating My Grandmother. She has written and directed broadcast documentaries for SBS and ABC Television. Her latest book is Wintering.

Stephanie Bishop is the author of Man Out of Time, The Other Side of the World and The Singing. Her work has been published in publications such as the London Review of Books, The Monthly, the Times Literary Supplement, The Guardian and Meanjin. She teaches in the Creative Writing Program at the University of New South Wales.

Lex Hirst is the Publisher at social purpose publishing house Pantera Press. A former director of the National Young Writers' Festival and the Junkee Junket Unconference, she's always on the lookout for exciting new voices, great storytelling and books that spark conversation, imagination and change.